Replacing the GPD MicroPCs battery

In June 2019, GPD shipped the GPD MicroPC that I backed in February 2020. It took a bit to arrive to me in Germany, and I got the package delivered in late July. Overall, I was pretty happy with the device. It had a few issues with a lagging cursor and the strange display that GPD turned to - a sideways mounted smartphone display instead of a proper eDP screen. Thanks to the great wok of the Linux community, a working Ubuntu Mate version was ready at release date.

The following weeks I mainly used the MicroPC to get some coding done during my train communte, where I usually do not have a seat. The MicroPC serves this purpose quite well, eventhough my coding speed drops arguably due to the small keyboard layout. In October 2019, I was on vaction a bit and left the system in standby for a week or so. When I returned, the MicroPC’s battery was dead (which was okay) and did not charge anymore (which was really, really bad).

After a bit of searching I found that this exact same issue already hit a few folks in the MicroPC Reddit communtiy. They claimed that the early-stage production units had a battery controller issue and the only way to get it fixed was a replacement battery sent over from GPD. Luckily, GPD was aware of the issue, so a simple email to kendyz@gpd.hk should trigger the replacement.

I took a video of the problem, sent it over and promptly received an answer that my replacement was in the queue waiting for a new batteries to reach GPD. Then, nothing happened for two months. In mid December 2019, I wrote another email and asked for the replacement. The prompt answer inidicated, that replacement units were still not available.

Suprisingly, I received a notification from UPS beginning of January 2020, that a package was sent my way. It contained the replacement battery, that I happily mounuted and actually fixed the charging issue. I have not drained the battery since mounting it and do not intend to.